


None of Us Have a Choice

by Herbrarian



Series: New Orders [6]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Backstory, Battle, Beginnings, Canon-Typical Violence, Chant of Light, Duty, First Meetings, Gen, Haven (Dragon Age), Rift, Templar Order, Temple of Sacred Ashes, The Conclave, war council
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-21 05:02:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9532631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Herbrarian/pseuds/Herbrarian
Summary: Previously:  Cassandra and Cullen have returned to Ferelden with Varric in tow. The Conclave has begun to gather, but the Seeker is still half a day’s ride out when the unthinkable explodes across the sky.





	1. Chapter 1

“Lady Seeker, it is good to see you.”

Knight-Captain Raleigh greets her with a fervent gleam in his eye. She stills her mind for a few moments and feels outward for Lyrium. Good; it as she had hoped. He has dosed recently and his blood sings. She feels gratitude for his strength.

“Report, Knight-Captain.” In the distance she spies Leliana bent over with Lady Montilyet. They review lists from the latter’s briefcase, ticking off names as runners bring more reports. Cassandra huffs a breath of thankfulness to the Bride. She knew Leliana lived, but it is the first time she has laid eyes on her since they arrived at Haven. It is a relief to see the red-headed bard, but Justinia is nowhere in sight and the reports that the Divine has yet to be recovered from the Temple mock her in Leliana’s solitary figure.

“The Lady Left Hand’s forward parties have returned some reconnaissance,” he leads her to a map of Haven and the Temple. “Would you prefer to have the Left Hand present?” Raleigh asks courteously when her eyes linger on Leliana.

“Not necessary, Knight-Captain; proceed,” and she follows him to the table. Spread out is the map she, Leliana, and Justinia had marked in Val Royeaux to plan where delegations would be housed.

“The village and the surrounding tent encampment is largely untouched. The Chantry in Haven still stands and I have some of my men and a group of masons inspecting the structure for damage.”

“Has part of it collapsed?”

“No, Lady Seeker,” she notices Raleigh defaults to her military title. She doesn’t correct him; they are all unsettled. “But we evacuated the clergy from the Chantry and it was reported they felt the explosion. Apparently, many of the statues of Andraste have toppled and shattered. With all of the stone littering the nave, it was difficult to determine if the building was damaged.”

“Where are the clerics now? Who is among them?”

“It was the workspace of the local delegation and that of the Redcliffe and Jader delegations. They were also hosting the Chancellor and his staff. They are all sequestered down in the village, receiving healing and food.”

“Praise be to the Maker you found Roderick. He will have the Divine’s schedule!” Cassandra feels relief begin to bloom off of her forehead.

“Yes, he did, Lady Seeker. He confirmed the Divine was scheduled in the Revered Mother’s antechamber—where she had taken space as her reception room—for meetings. She was scheduled to receive various delegates from the Free Marches this morning. The Chancellor confirms that the Divine was on schedule.”

Cassandra looks down to the map, locates the room Justinia claimed as her reception and private room during the Conclave. According to what she has been told so far, this part of the Temple has been decimated by the explosion. It was a narrow chance that the Divine would not have been there, but one Cassandra had hoped for. “What have the sortie parties found?”

“We have yet to penetrate that far, Lady Seeker.”

Cassandra rolls back her shoulders and draws breath down along the column of her spine. Her jaw sets and she clips out, “What do you mean you have yet to penetrate that far? This is the Most Holy, man, not some apostate you are sweeping up that the townspeople may lynch and save you the trouble. She is the embodiment of the church in our world and is as sacred as Andraste, herself!”

Cassandra becomes aware she is backing the Knight-Captain against a wall, the dagger from behind her back pressed under the belly joint of his plate, the tip tilted to pierce into soft flesh. The Templar gurgles a response, his eyes flicking past her head. On her right she feels a presence, sees blonde hair and a fur collar. Cullen places his left hand on her dagger arm, speaks calmly in her ear:

“Cassandra, let him go. It is not his fault. It is worse than a horde out there.”

She turns and looks into his too pale face, still sallow from the sea. She knows what she will find when she stretches her sense, feels for his Lyrium, knows it will be the same as it was an hour ago, two hours ago.

But she recoils when she senses it feels different: lower. He had gone in search of information from a forward detachment, she had gone in search of the Templar authority: it seems they both found what they sought. “Maleficar?” she whispers.

“Some, perhaps,” he answers low, “but mainly demons.” The strain from the Cleanses he’s done over the last hour fray the edge of his words. “It would seem that there are tears in the Veil—just happening—” his voice waivers on that, “and demons are pouring out, no one appears to be calling them out. They are filling the Valley, Cassandra. There may not be a Temple left.” Cullen looks her in the eye, a look of pain and great sadness in his gaze.

Cassandra reads in his expression an echo of her own despair. They have planned this for so long, months of preparation and diverting resources, cajoling participants and assuring safe passage, and the unimaginable has happened. Her eyes thicken as her vision swims. She shifts to lean over the table, feeling her legs beckon her to fall to the ground and give in to her despair. Her gaze drifts over the map of the Temple and she notices a series of supply notes made by Leliana with Justinia’s firm counterstroke through the words. The Divine’s sprawling hand records her countermand for two cases of madeira to be delivered to a delegation from Nevarra rather than the one Cassandra had told Leliana would suffice. Cassadra’s gloved fingers trace the pen strokes.

“It cannot come to this,” she whispers quietly to herself. Her eyes flit across the map. Louder she calls: “How many outside the gates?”

Cullen stares at her, his eyes registering his concern, but he answers, “Three full complement,” and his mouth tightens to ask a question, but she doesn’t give him a chance.

“Ser Raleigh, how many have you sent into the Valley?” she clips out.

Raleigh approaches the map and gestures to the northern perimeter of the Temple: “Two have gone through the Pilgrims’ Trek. They were to report back with a survey of damage, but we haven’t heard from them. I sent four more squads into the Valley to deal with the demons. The thrust of my Templars are there. There will be a few Templars outside,” Raleigh motions to Cullen, indicating the squads outside the village.

Leliana joins them at the table, listening to troop assessment, and offers, “Send a mixed sortie of my scouts and the soldiers up the mountain path, Cassandra; the intelligence they could bring back . . .”

Cassandra finishes for her, “. . . would be beyond valuable. But the beginning of the spring thaw will make it treacherous.” She forestalls Leliana with a raised hand and says in a firm tone, “Not so dangerous as to make the risk unacceptable, but dangerous enough, Leliana, to make it too risky to rely on it alone.” Cassandra moves delegation markers from the map and shifts troop indicators. “We need eyes on the Revered Mother’s antechamber, and we need it at all costs.

“Cullen, you will take a full squadron from outside and all the supplies you can carry into the Valley. You will strengthen and hold that position and organize rift defenses with the Templars to keep the demons from streaming into Haven.

“Raleigh, you will pick a light compliment of soldiers—no more than half a dozen—to go with Leliana’s scouts up the mountain. You, yourself, will remain with Leliana to see to troop rotations and movement of supplies into the Valley to assist Cullen while the Temple is assessed.”

“What of you Cassandra?” Leliana asks, caution creeping into her tone.

Cassandra meets her gaze. “I will lead another dozen into Sacred Ashes.”

“Lady Seeker!” Raleigh begins to stammer a protest, “let me go in your stead. I swear I will move quickly with my men. You can be free to remain here and direct us!”

Leliana smiles wryly as Cassandra retorts: “Ser Knight, I was facing down abominations for the Divine when you were still practicing with bundles. I do not need to be coddled. Besides,” Cassandra nods toward Leliana and Cullen, “the three of us here walked the Temple. I can cross the threshold and count my steps to the antechamber, even if the walls are not there, may the Maker save us if that is necessary.” She murmurs the last, taking a breath. “You have your orders, Knight-Captain; go assign the soldiers that are to move out.” She reaches out and grabs Raleigh’s arm as he turns to pass her, “No more than one Templar with me, Knight Captain. The rest send to the Valley with Ser Rutherford.” Raleigh nods, salutes his acceptance, and leaves.

Cassandra stares at the map, senses Cullen drawing level with her. Leliana draws in to her other side, each of them turned toward her to shield their low conversation as they all look to the map, not making eye contact with one another.

“What do we know, Leliana?” Cassandra whispers in a hiss to the Nightingale.

“Most Holy broke her fast at half past seven. She was attended by Sister Lucille and I met with her a little after eight to discuss the day’s schedule. Josephine joined us at about half eight and I left them discussing the diplomatic delegation meetings as I returned to prepare for your arrival.” Cassandra notes the strain to Leliana’s tone. She knows without asking that the other woman is questioning having left Justinia’s side this morning, as if anyone could stop the Veil from tearing. Cassandra knows this because she does much the same, questioning why she did not arrive sooner. Bile rises in the back of Cassandra’s throat at the thought of idly cleaning her armor while Justinia sat in her morning meetings without the Right Hand there.

“The Val Royeaux company was supplemented this morning with Templars from Highever and guard men who have served in Denerim. Knight-Commander Ranulf had command this morning, himself.”

“Baruck is missing?” Cullen breaks in, his tone harsh, matching the furrow between his brow. Cassandra notes Cullen’s use of the other Templar’s first name; remembers that Ranulf had been in Kirkwall for a time when Cullen first came there.

“Yes. Raleigh sent men out early to look for him, assuming he would be with the Divine. They returned having seen no sign of them and having to turn back for reinforcements when the demons overwhelmed them on the periphery of the Temple grounds. We lost six Templars in that scouting mission.”

“They happily gave their lives.” Cassandra hears Cullen drone in admonishment.

“You misunderstand Leliana, Cullen. Her caution is because the number of Templars that remain with us is finite, yes, Leliana?” Cassandra looks to the Left Hand. If Cassandra could entreat Leliana to negate the statement, she would, but she knows there is no hope of that.

“The number of Templars left is not only limited, it is also not known, Cassandra. We are pulling in reports all the time, but there are so few—too few—reporting in,” Leliana returns.

“But you have not penetrated to the Temple yet, Leliana. We must move in to the interior if we are to find where Justinia hides,” Cassandra insists. The red-haired woman nods fiercely, her eyes aglow with determination. “We will find her, Leliana, or I will die trying.”

“Lady Cassandra,” Cullen’s stern tone pulls Cassandra from the quiet thanks in Leliana’s face, “it is madness what you are setting out to do. You don’t have enough information and you will be needed in the Valley to organize troops and the surge into the Temple. You cannot simply throw away your life.”

Cassandra turns to fully look at Cullen: “I will hear you out, Cullen, but you will not change my mind.” Cassandra turns and kisses Leliana on the cheek, “Maker fly with you, Nightingale.”

“May the Bride be your shield-arm, Seeker.” Leliana returns the embrace, clasping her arms around her briefly and then she is away to a bevy of scouts who await her attention.


	2. Chapter 2

“Walk with me, Cullen,” and Cassandra ducks out of the closed dining room where Leliana has established a command center. It is an old inn that the Hands had taken as a delegation reception post when they first visited the Temple to make plans. Cassandra turns to the stairs that lead to the first floor and begins to climb. On the way up she flags a runner and requests he fetch two pitchers of warm water from the kitchens and bring them above stairs.

She takes a key from her breast pocket, its twin safely in the Nightingale’s possession, and moves to a closed door. The lock turns easily and the door opens on the sparse, quiet room. She and Leliana had commandeered this small guest room, having a unique key fit to the lock once the Chantry took temporary possession of the inn when preparations began in earnest two months ago. They had both assessed they would keep late nights. Neither woman wanted to be in less than top form for Justinia, and took the opportunities to see the evening’s rest when the Maker provided them.

Cullen follows her in and she motions for him to sit on the bed and she approaches a table where an empty wash basin sits, waiting for a pitcher. Linens await at the foot of the bed, and Cassandra removes her gloves and loosens her breastplate. The open door to the hall soon reveals the runner returned with the pitchers. Cassandra takes one from him and gestures to sit the other on the floor. The young man leaves, closing the door behind him. Cassandra pours water into the basin, throws in a linen cloth, and retreats behind the screen in the room with it. Once there, she begins to undress and bathe her neck, face, arms. She calls out to Cullen who is sitting miserably on the bed, “Speak.”

She waits in the silence, listening to the rustle of armor as Cullen stands and gathers his thoughts. It is one of the things she has come to appreciate about the Templar since he came to the Grand Cathedral: his every thought is meticulous and measured, weighed for impact and intent. She admires it immensely in him. For her own part, she tends toward impulsivity, led by the rashness of her gut.

“If the reports coming up from the Valley are only partly true, Lady Seeker, there has been little to no movement out of the Temple. In the most basic of accidents, Ser Ranulf’s primary goal would have been to retreat with the Divine and bring her to this station. For there to have been no sign and no word from them, the devastation at the Temple may be complete. We should assume it.

“It may not have been possible for any to have survived. Lady Cassandra, you must see this.” His tone pleads for an acknowledgement of the futility of retrieving what lies beyond the ridge on the other side of the Valley.

Cassandra loosens her tunic and wipes the dried sweat from between her breasts, moves the cloth to the small of her back. Her skin breathes as pores—tightened over with salt and dust from the road—flex in the air. Her belly pebbles with goose flesh as she swipes there and then drops the wet cloth in the basin.

“Yes,” she returns solemnly, stepping out to face Cullen, tucking her tunic back into her breeches. “That this many hours have gone and Most Holy has not yet been recovered,” she pauses, stares off as she fights for words, ties the laces of the tunic at her throat, doesn’t speak until she begins to retie the sleeves shut at the cuffs. “It is not likely she is there to recover.”

He looks at her, bewildered: “Then, why are you going?”

“Because it is likely we go to our deaths, and I cannot send anyone else for this task,” she replies heavily.

“But you are the most experienced leader we have here!” he bursts out, stepping forward as if to shake her. But he masters himself at the last, draws up to his full height to stand to attention, hands resting on the pommel of his sword. “How can you leave us to tromp to your death?”

Cassandra arches an eyebrow at him. Cullen flushes and scowls, turning his body partly away, his posture no longer challenging. His tell-tale hand moves to his neck and she knows he is more distressed at what he hasn’t said yet.

_There isn’t time for this._

But she knows that if she does go to her death, there isn’t _not_ time to speak of this. She fetches the basin of water from behind the screen and pours it back into the pitcher. She removes it from the table and stoops to pick up the other pitcher from the floor. She hands it to Cullen and gestures to the washbasin. She moves to the screen and shifts it to divide the room, picks up her pack and goes to stand on the other side. She begins to loosen her leggings and to change for fresh. She calls around the screen: “What would you have me do?” she speaks assertively, her tone brokering no allowance for Cullen to retreat or acquiesce.

She hears him set the pitcher on the table. One beat. Two beats. Three. She hears him pick it up and begin to pour water for himself. “It will be chaos out there, Cassandra. Raleigh’s report will only be the tip of the mountain,” he says, strain in his voice. She can almost hear him pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“Tell me why,” she says with little inflection, listening carefully for the direction she needs him to find.

“Raleigh is from Cumberland. While it is Nevarra, the city plays by the Rules of the Game and Raleigh is high born. He is known to minimize the reality of a situation so as to appeal to his superiors. He will not have told you everything he knows.” Cullen’s voice moves back and forth as he begins to pace in the space from the door to the table.

“So what should be done?” she asks plainly, sitting on a stool to begin to re-lace her boots now that she has fresh linens on.

“Once he assesses who to send to the Temple, pull his Second aside; no matter who the roster says it is, it is whomever he sends into the Valley. That will be his best soldier. If you want to find what is going on, that would be the way to do it. Then move Raleigh to the Valley with me, instead. He will take orders well, and he knows what he is about with his training, but he should only be kept in nominal command. Even with his connections, he has only made Knight-Captain for a reason: don’t overextend his abilities.”

“Good,” she calls, genuinely pleased with the surety in Cullen’s tone. She comes around the screen. She picks up a linen from the table, left discarded by the water he has poured into the basin. She hands it to Cullen: “You stink of horse.” Cullen blushes and stares, but she shoos him to the basin as she turns to her breast plate.

As she raises the plate and slips through her arm, she listens to him remove his gorget and the plate from his chest and arms. “What then?” she prompts as she begins to set her own buckles, her back to the man.

“Leliana can hold this position with her scouts. To leave a significant Templar presence here would be a waste of resources. That contingent should be moved to the Village to secure the Chantry. That will make a more solid, defendable base.”

“Yes, Leliana would prefer to operate without the Templars under her thumb, anyway. What else?” she prompts and looks over to see Cullen staring out the window as he bathes his face and neck, his attention pulled to the problem she lays before him.

As he continues to list through the men and women he’s seen on the roster that have been accounted for and work through the next several hours of holding their position, Cassandra breathes a near-silent breath of relief. The cool, clear head that kept him alive—kept Kirkwall alive—after the Gallows explosion has begun to pull weight.

She sits on the bed as he finishes. She pulls her saddle bag to her and looks for her leather portfolio with her private papers. The room has gone quiet as she looks for a slender envelope with slightly frayed edges. Her uncle’s name graces the front. She closes the bag to look up at Cullen regarding her.

“The troops will need a leader in the Valley, Cullen, you are right. But it will not be me.”

She stands and picks up her scabbard and sword.

“You have proven yourself ready for this, Ser Knight. You have spent the last fifteen minutes telling me precisely why I’m not needed here.” She settles her sword at her side and looks up at him. “Even if I was not the Right Hand, you would be a natural choice to lead in the Valley. But, as it is, I am the Right Hand, and my place is at the side of the Divine, even if,” she holds up a hand to halt any conversation on the point, “even if it means joining her side in death.”

Cullen grits out, low and menacing: “But this isn’t Justinia’s Inquisition, Cassandra, not yet, and I am no Templar; what right do I have? What authority?”

Cassandra’s face softens and she move toward Cullen, laying her hand on his arm, “You have all you need, Cullen. You work for the Divine, you have her trust and belief. You are her Young Lion,” he gives a wry grimace at her smile, “and you are their Commander. Cullen, you saw who was out there, who is left to lead: sycophants like Raleigh and green soldiers. Keep them alive, Commander, and hold the line until we can send back more information.”

Cullen meets her eyes and she watches as his resolve foments and solidifies. He nods his head, once, briskly in acceptance and Cassandra turns toward the door. “I need to find Leliana to give her this,” she throws over her shoulder, her hand on the latch, “I will meet you downstairs in five minutes, Commander.”

Cassandra moves briskly to the hall and down the steps. She approaches the arch into the large common room serving as the nerve center of Leliana’s operations. She hesitates briefly on the threshold. The letter for her uncle should go into Leliana’s care, but she has no wish to distract either of them from the press of finding Justinia.

Cassandra spies Iona at a table a few feet into the room and she sees an answer to her dilemma.

“Iona,” Cassandra calls low as she approaches the scribe and cryptographer, “I have something I need done.”

The young woman stands, murmurs, “Yes, Right Hand,” and waits instruction.

“I have a letter I would like given into the care of the Left Hand for delivery should I not return. But,” Cassandra cautions as she hands it over, “she does not need it until I have crossed the ridge to the Temple.”

Iona looks Cassandra clearly in the face and nods once to show her understanding. Cassandra releases the envelope into her care and turns to go.

“Maker go with you, Right Hand, to bring the Divine back to us,” Iona calls softly after her.

“May the Bride shelter us all,” Cassandra returns and moves to the door to outside, a few steps behind Cullen.

He turns briefly and looks at her, loyalty and friendship burning a clear light in his eyes: the fug of the withdrawal seared away with the task laid before him.

But she doesn’t turn to see it.

She doesn’t need to.

Cullen was never her choice; but he had been Justinia’s, which made him no less a chosen gift for what she needed than Leliana had been.

If Justinia was to be found in the pit of death that waited them beyond the Valley, then Cassandra would find her and Cullen would hold the line . . . until the Maker saw fit to gather each of them to His side.


	3. Chapter 3

“Lady Seeker, I do not think that floor is stable. The sound of it . . .” the Templar in front of her shudders, his mouth and upper lip curling into a rictus of disgust.

So much of the cleanup in Kirkwall had been long finished by the time she led a delegation to represent the Divine. But she had read the reports, seen the requests for dispensation to provide death rites at the site of the large pyres outside of the city walls, off of holy ground.

She has no doubt that the smell that wafts from the area is what the Gallows smelled like before they began the pyres.

Cassandra knows as surely as Ser Appius does that several of the Templar bodies they passed were gutted like trussed boars not because they were caught unawares, but because they had laid down next to the Red Lyrium and let madness descend over them.

A small part of her brain shudders to think of the number of Templars who had been present for the Conclave. She knows from the countless interviews she’s conducted that many of the Templars who stayed with the Circles did so because they could not risk the next vial. More of them than anyone dares admit are that close to the last whispers of sanity the Lyrium leaves them.

“Maker, do not let me find Justinia dead at their hands. Please,” she whispers.

She peers down the corridor. It glows with an eerie red radiance, the color like the surge of coals in the core of a furnace. Her mouth purses in a moue of distaste, thinking to the statue of the Knight-Commander. The sheer lunacy that Stannard could not see the wrongness of the Lyrium, even before infection—

“Lady Seeker?” Ser Appius’s voice breaks into her thoughts, a slight hint of desperation entering into his disciplined tones of authority. It snaps Cassandra back to the present: the Temple, the floor, Justinia.

“Fine, Ser Knight, we will descend the wall and cross the—” she casts about for a moment looking to the right word now that there are no walls. The expanse invites the eye to focus up, pulls the gaze to the sky, the green and red mingling in a parody of a holy festival of light. “—plain.” The wrongness of it lays in her gut: it should _not_ be open to the sky. Crumpled stone and mortar still outline walls that in her imagination reach for ceilings that now lay in rubble over parquet floors and mosaic tile.

The company drops quietly into the area of the temple-proper, descending from the ledge made by the entryway’s common areas before they open into the inner sanctum. Exposed, the soldiers form up on her and Ser Appius.

A short woman with dual blades crossed in a harness over her back sidles up next to the Templar, looking for orders. Appius points out a path for her to take. Cassandra watches his gestures, understands the scout will take a pair of soldiers with her to explore to the south. Cassandra remembers the map from the inn that is also etched into her head:  that path should lead them away from the tear in the Veil. She nods at Leliana’s agent as the woman and her guard begins to move off, saluting them with a fist to her heart. The Seeker prays to the Bride for them to find Justinia quickly and far from the madness of the tear in the Veil. It is a useless prayer, but it is instinct.

Ser Appius rejoins her side, nods to the Seeker to signal the soldiers’ readiness and she leads them out without more discussion. Words have never been her assets. She appreciates the beauty of them:  marvels in the intricacies of the Chant; eagerly devours them in the latest, sensationalist penny novel; sighs at the deep sentiment of a slowly turned line of poetry.

Leliana is the one with grace to her words:  the Nightingale of the Game who can fight her way through court intrigues on the strength of her smile and her laugh. When Leliana first came, Cassandra had swum in her doubts of the Nightingale’s methods; but soon enough she’d come to appreciate them, come to appreciate Justinia’s choice, Justinia’s guidance. It proved hard to love Leliana until the Seeker of Truth had realized the sharpness of the Nightingale’s blade. The words and the smiles covered the blade and kept it covered unless those words and smiles and laughs—and only when those—failed.  

Cassandra has never had more than her sword. She felt the lack of her primary language with Beatrice: a young Seeker, given a prestigious, but ultimately benign, assignment to sit a Divine. Beatrice had been a scholar and words were her provenance. She had taught Cassandra to trust words—even if Beatrice had never taught her to use them with any grace—to trust words as surely as Cassandra trusted her sword.

The Blight came, though. Then the careful world of scholarship and knowledge the Divine constructed around herself crumbled away in waves of blood that swallowed her brain and took with it all of her words and careful thought. Justinia had come as a product of the Game, and she was not content merely to hope the outside world would spin in the direction she wanted. Leliana’s appointment told Cassandra as much as anything that Justinia had a place for actions as well as words.

She snaps to the present again, dismissing her wanderings, her memories. She focuses on the forward scouts and Ser Appius who are bent together. One of the scouts—Umbril—gestures with wide arms, his hands telling a story of falling stones and open pits. Approaching the pair, Cassandra waits patiently so Ser Appius can report. The Templar takes a moment to consider and then turns to Cassandra with a decisive shift.

“Lady Seeker, the path to the Divine’s chamber would lie that way,” he points and Cassandra nods, “but there is a great deal of damage. The ceiling has collapsed, taking bearing walls with it. Large pits have opened to the lower floors. The concern is that even if we could navigate on the edges, the remaining flooring may not be able to bear the weight of all of us. We will need to find another route, Seeker.”

Cassandra’s mouth tightens. She rubs her fist into the palm of her other hand. It is a nervous habit she acquired while in training. She has tried to stop it in recent years; Leliana has pointed out it makes her menace. When the Divine agreed, Cassandra took to rubbing the fit of her gloves on her fingers as a replacement tic. But neither Justinia or Leliana are here now, and her habit goes unchecked.

She motions to Umbril and gestures to another soldier, a wiry, limber man who travelled to Kirkwall on each of her trips there in the last few years. “Take this route with Michel and follow the path to the Divine’s chamber. We must leave no possible route unseen. Look for signs of the Divine’s honor guard in the collapse below the floor. Seek out the antechamber.” The two figures turn to go and Cassandra stops them with a word: “If you find the Divine and any reinforcements, take her out of this. If you reach the reception rooms, leave a signal if you can, but do not tarry to wait for us if you find her. Protect Most Holy at the expense of all else.” She meets Michel’s eye. She sees the flicker of sorrow in him and wonders if he thinks on the private audience Justinia had with each of them after Kirkwall. Justinia would have extended her blessing to him, unexpected and unasked:  it is her way.

She knows with certainty they will not meet again in this life so she clasps his arm at his elbow in a wordless farewell and then turns to organize the rest of the company, effectively dismissing the scout and the soldier to their path.

There is only one track left to take, and it is around the far perimeter of the Temple. It will leave them exposed: exposed to the Red Lyrium, exposed to the Demons, exposed to the rupture in the Veil. Bile floods Cassandra’s mouth and she momentarily second guesses her decision to bring only one Templar. Looking to Ser Appius, she sees her own misgiving mirrored. But her resolve is also similarly mirrored there, so they begin to pick their way on the edge of the rubble to find another path to Most Holy.

It is slow going. Though it is yet only early spring, heat swells from the ground and the air shimmers with it. She remembers reading a report from Varric’s interrogation (one of them; she cannot remember which one, now:  each one runs together) where he described the feeling of a cauldron of heat boiling out from the center of the Gallows. There was something about the phrasing of it— _left a sense of being seared if the searing was also a flail that could open up your skin_ —which rang true. When she sees him next—if she sees him next—she’ll have to buy him a bottle:  no one should have to live though this to protect their city and their friends.

Because she is thinking about Varric she almost fails to see the Terror Demon moving toward her to slice open her face.

She shifts her shield in time and diverts the claw into her elbow, saving her eye and nose. Her senses distill into the moment and she mutedly hears one of the soldiers call from her right for a comrade who is pinned down. She glances over to see Ser Appius facing another Terror; a smaller one, thank the Maker, because she realizes that the shimmer of red coming toward them is not the reflection of Red Lyrium, but a Rage Demon.

She initiates a payback strike against the Terror who shrieks in pain and swoops away from her. Shouting a challenge to the Rage Demon who pauses from its path at Ser Appius, she sets her shoulders and charges it in its moment of hesitation. Slamming into the demon with her shield, knocking up and away as she swings from her elbow with her sword arm, she connects with a fiery limb. She pivots, parrying a thrust from the demon’s other arm and bashes it with her shield. Once she does, she sees part of its form begin to shimmer and pull away from her. When she looks, she sees what can only be one of the Rifts that Cullen and Raleigh described. It twinkles and undulates, much as the larger Breach in the sky continues to swirl and spin.

With one final thrust of her sword the Rage Demon dissolves and she watches its substance streak back to the Rift. She wants to turn to help Ser Appius, but from the Rift she sees something which makes her mouth numb with terror. A dozen Hurlocks pour out and focus on her at the vanguard. With so many, she knows she cannot stand alone. Cassandra readies her shield wall and calls to three soldiers just behind her. They swarm on her point and she shouts to them to have care around the Hurlocks’ blades, that they will carry the Blight. As she lunges forward to meet the first two, she hears the confusion of the soldier shouting on her right. She thrusts into the first Hurlock and it goes down quickly to her reinforced strike. The puzzlement of how easily she slays the Hurlock only briefly flits through her thoughts as she becomes consumed with fear for Justinia and the thought of her body broken and torn by Darkspawn, marred with the Taint.

Her heart is in her throat and she fights off tears when she feels a Cleanse pulse through the area. The Hurlocks in front of her shift, their forms suddenly less corporeal. They cycle through various forms. For a moment, she cannot register the nonsense of it until she sees Ser Appius strike one and watches as it streaks back to the Rift like the Rage Demon.

They are not Darkspawn. They are Fearlings.

She draws a breath and issues a War Cry, calling them to her. Now that she knows, she easily parries through them as one soldier, then another and another join her side, heartened by her confidence and battle lust. The company pushes on, chasing the Fearlings toward the Rift and she falls back with Ser Appius who has paused at the rear of the battle, a look of heavy concentration on his face.

“Can you close it?” she pants harshly as she sees two Fear Demons push through and the soldiers ready to face them. She must get back to the battle; they have to push beyond this spot and she has no idea how to close this opening to the Fade now that it has just ripped into the air.

“I think—” Appius furrows his brow in concentration, his mouth in a grimace of effort, “I think I can push at the edges of the Veil. We were doing this together down in the Valley, Seeker, I never thought to question how much different it would feel if I was pushing on it on my own.” She closes her eyes for a brief moment and swears. Of course; in her ambition to join Justinia, in her need to protect the Valley and all of the people, she has not thought this through.

If she were to stop and be honest, she had not believed that the Veil could just open.

“Seeker, I need you to take out those Fear Demons; I think if I have them cleared out and apply a Purge, it will put the Rift into a stasis and we should be able to pass.”

“Do it, Ser Appius; I will give you as much aid as my blade can buy.” She sprints toward the smaller cluster of soldiers who are facing the Fear Demon farthest away from the Templar. Cassandra understands that the two Demons are trying to place the company of soldiers between them so they can press them into a vice where the demons will winnow down the number of the soldiers, one by one.

Bellowing her rage, disregarding that her emotion will probably call to more horrors from beyond the Rift, she lets her War Cry announce her presence as she covers the blind side of the leftmost soldier. Then she is at it—shoulder to shoulder, blade to blade—and they are all three of them fighting for their lives. She manages to connect a solid thrust into the demon’s shoulder, but she pays for it by opening her stance and she takes a hit. The slick that comes may be blood or sweat or ichor; she cannot be sure. Pain is distant and disconnected from her.

She feels instead the worry, the misery, the tooth-aching rot pain of failure. Justinia had asked for them to make a chance, to save the world from chaos; Justinia had trusted her not to fail and she will die here in ash and tears and perverted Lyrium and it will all have been for nothing.

_The demons will win._

It is that last thought that pulls her out of her spiral. She shakes herself a little to see that she has stuttered to a stop, has begun to lower her sword, dip her shield down to leave herself exposed. Her eyes snap open as she sees the soldier on the far side of her fighting fiercely, on his own, against the Fear Demon. She re-engages, realizing that the Fear Demon has been spinning her head into a compliant state.

As she renews the battle, she begins the Chant.

I have faced armies  
With You as my shield,

Her Nevarran accent lies thick on the words as they rise up from her belly.

And though I bear scars beyond counting, nothing  
Can break me except Your absence.

She shifts her foot quickly, raising her shield to protect the soldier on her left that has gone still.

When I have lost all else, when my eyes fail me

She moves into the demon’s grasping range.

And the taste of blood fills my mouth,

She quickly bashes up with her shield, knocking the demon’s head to snap back on its inhuman shoulders.

In the pounding of my heart  
I hear the glory of creation.

With a sure, hard thrust she impales the demon on her blade and sharply brings the edge of her shield to the hilt to pull the blade down and eviscerate the demon.

She pants hard as it dissipates, streaking back to the Rift. She hears dimly by her shoulder: “Your name is etched into my every step. I will not forsake You, even if I forget myself.”

The soldier next to her has picked up the Chant and she nods, turns toward the other demon who looks haggard but still holds its own against the soldiers. Ser Appius is down on one knee, fiercely concentrating and she can feel the pull of Lyrium in his blood. She begins the Chant again in a shout as she pounds to join the other combat.

Maker, though the darkness comes upon me,  
I shall embrace the Light. I shall weather the storm.  
I shall endure.  
What You have created, no one can turn asunder.

On the last, their assault flanks the demon and ends the battle. It streams back to the Rift. Cassandra shouts for them to form up on her and she squares off to face the Rift, continuing the Chant, praying to the Bride to strengthen her arm for another bout while they wait for the knight.

Then it is done.

Her chest heaves as the soldiers wait. She orders for them to take a knee and she turns back to Appius, to congratulate him on what he has done.

The knight is on his knees, his sword blade down in the ground before him, and he leans heavily on the hilt. She is not sure he would be up if not for the support the steel provides to him. When she reaches him she checks for injuries, but sees nothing terribly serious. Her own shoulder is beginning to ache, but she shoves that aside. He lifts his head when she calls his name and his eyes are hollow, his face ashen.

“Do you have another vial, Ser Knight?” she clips.

“Yes, Lady Seeker; I have just taken my spare ration. I will be fine. I am just . . . winded. And,” he pauses, twists his head and screws shut his eyes as if trying to ignore a sound, “the Red Lyrium is sharper now. I will be able to withstand it, Seeker.” Clear eyes open and raise to her face, “We should keep moving. The Rift will only hold for so long and we still have to get back out.” She grunts her assent, puts a hand under his shoulder and gets him on his feet.

They call for the soldiers and form up to continue on the path. The Breach swirls close overhead and she marvels that there is anything left here. Here and there walls and floors are left strangely untouched:  a door still hangs on its hinges, latched, the sight made all the odder by the wall that ceases to exist next to it. Bits of ceiling pass by unexpected overhead, winking the Breach in and out of sight. Her palms itch that she cannot see around corners, and they send a soldier ahead at each juncture to scout their route.

The closer they get as they wind their way around to descend toward Most Holy’s reception rooms, the more obvious it becomes that the Breach is hovering directly above their destination.

They prepare to round a corner that should bring them within feet of Justinia’s rooms. As the forward soldiers disappear to verify the way being clear, a large surge of magic explodes around them and mortar falls from the walls they stand next to. She grits her teeth, flexing her fingers on the hilt in her hand, ready to run at the first sound from the scouts, the first sign of where to strike.

“Lady Seeker! Ser Knight!”

At the call she turns the corner, checking her lines of sight. There is not a demon in sight, but the Rift that dominates her vision demands all of her attention. Tendrils of Fade energy stream up from it like wisps of smoke and journey into the sky to the Breach. This Rift is four to five times larger than the one that they have just encountered and she feels a clutching wave of dread.

The Rift is located precisely where Most Holy’s office was.

The blast that felled the Temple, made the Breach, opened this Rift, came from here.

There will not be survivors.

Cassandra’s grief threatens to pull her to her knees. She casts about, looking to find something, anything, that could explain what is in front of them. She begins to descend the stairs, Ser Appius on her heels. “We must look for bodies,” she clips and the Templar nods his head. The company fans out around the periphery of the space, looking through the rubble. All of them are focused on their tasks and so it is a surprise when the Rift pulses again, pushing energy out and through them all. Two of the soldiers who are nearest the stairs draw their swords and turn to face the Rift.

They stand between Cassandra and the Rift so, when the Rift throws out a shadow, Cassandra cannot see what lands on the ground. The soldiers seem suddenly uncertain and she can discern Ser Appius advance at a crouch. She matches his steps, coming abreast with the soldiers to discover a woman lying on the ground, slumped on her arms and knees. The head of ash white hair shifts and green light pokes out from under her.

Cassandra begins to carefully advance when she feels energy pull from the Fade. Expecting another explosion from the Rift, she makes to shield her head when she feels a Smite pour through the area. Her eyes snap to Ser Appius who is striding to the woman on the ground, his gait eating up the distance. He kneels next to her as Cassandra reaches them and, at the sign that the woman is preparing to stir again, the knight releases another Smite. Cassandra feels her nerves stretch tight and she begins to question what the knight is doing when she looks down to the woman’s arm that Appius holds out to her.

The woman’s hand glows green and pulses in time with the Breach above their heads.

“She is a Mage, Lady Seeker,” Appius pants, confirming Cassandra’s suspicion. “This must be her doing.”

The knight’s declaration of guilt foments in her mind. She sheathes her weapon—the first time she has done so since she entered the path to the Temple—and advances to the woman on the ground. She wants no misunderstanding from any of the soldiers that she wants this woman alive.

“She will be judged; we will take her with us.” Louder, she calls about her, “Finish looking and form up, we are carrying her back when we go. Guard her, Ser Knight,” she starts to turn to finish evaluating the area and, almost as an afterthought, calls over her shoulder to Appius, “Smite her again: now is not the time for Mercy, but we will not be taken unawares, either. She will answer for what she has done.”

They finish. Cassandra motions for a soldier to pick up the prisoner, and they retrace their steps out of the Temple. It is not an easy trek; Ser Appius falls, giving them time to get away from a Rift so they can return the prisoner to Haven, to the Chantry. It is another name which leaves its life at the Conclave. She adds it next to Justinia’s, next to Michel’s, next to Ser Ranulf’s; grief will come, but for now it is far away and there is only her anger.

**Author's Note:**

> Create Order # 18
> 
> For more on this story's creation, checkout [Appendix, Chapter 6](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6612037/chapters/18520750)


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